No, I am not that old, but back in CB1 when the BA regen was much higher - starting out at 10/10min and finishing at 5/10min. Now, it is starts a 10/20 minutes and finishes at 6/20 minutes. The actual number of people is the chat room is not that much less, but the number of active people chatting is dramatically less.

When the regen was higher, there was more that you were able to do in CB and, therefore, stayed on line and chatting.

There are, of course, differences - in CB1 there was a BA charge for going into the store and in CB2 there are the NCB/NUB (problem to start with, IMO) which skew the BA regen rate.

I just dropped to 8/20min. Which means now, I have 6 hours and 40 minutes until I have to fight again before losing BA, so I am very tempted to just log out (Fight Feed) and then come back in 5 or 6 hours to run my BA down again.

With such a slow regen rate, why should I remain in game? Why not just check in every 5 hours or so?

While the overall population has fallen in half, the average number of people that I see in chat has not fallen as far. In CB1 I would frequently see 35-40 people in chat. In CB2, I frequently see 27-32 people in chat. There is a 20%ish drop off, but not as large as the overall base drop off. The people in chat, myself included, just do not seem to chat as much as they used to.

You've lost some chatters in chat, too. I used to chat, a lot. Animated chat. Well-worded chat. Fun chat. But I got tired of facist rules and kicks, and the ever-enduring response to complaining: "A kick isn't bad, why care?"

So I stopped caring. And stopped chatting. Looks like the system is operating as designed.

You've lost some chatters in chat, too. I used to chat, a lot. Animated chat. Well-worded chat. Fun chat. But I got tired of facist rules and kicks, and the ever-enduring response to complaining: "A kick isn't bad, why care?"

So I stopped caring. And stopped chatting. Looks like the system is operating as designed.

----

The admins have said, quite clearly, that OPs should relax. And, I think, most of them have. I haven't seen ANYTHING considering something approaching a risky kick in awhile. Indeed, there have been some times where a chatter probably should have been kicked and wasn't because everyone is trying to relax and give chatters freedom.

In all honesty, if you don't chat, it's not the OP's fault. You just really should give it a second try. I mean, imagine trying a cheeseburgers, disliking it, and then NEVER trying another one anytime ever because you didn't like it? It's silly.

Even if you don't LIKE the chat OPs, that doesn't make them evil. Just like just because someone likes an OP, doesn't make them a good OP.

GW, I never said anything was anyone's fault. I said why I didn't chat any more.

That is entirely my decision and entirely up to me, so I'm not sure what your post has to do with what I stated. I'm not going back to chat, and if the reason is that I think waffles should be pink instead of beige, who cares?

The same would go for cheeseburgers. If I try one, don't like it, and never try another, what's it to you? I think the word "silly" definitely applies, just not to me. So, go eat a cheeseburger while enjoying some fine, CB-chat action, and I wish you the best!

To perhaps deliver a more on-topic response, I agree with you, Strum, that lower BA regeneration saps some energy from community activity as a whole (not just chat).

Many voices said the lower rate would lead to things like less experimentation and worse statistical methods, since there simply isn't as much BA to play with (and each one had better be a win, especially with bonuses in play), as well as making forging cycles that much more important not to screw up.

But as with a few things lately, it was stated that we would give the new BA scheme a try, see how it worked, and then regardless of "how it worked" (since it was hard to divine what the regen reduction was going for in the first place), it stayed in place until it became the norm. Ramifications such that you are appropriately now noticing probably won't have the remotest chance of switching anything back, either.

So, I would say, "yes" lower regen rates hurt chat, along with any other more immediate activities in CB-land.

Though playing on phones and loss of social players are bigger reasons why chat has slumped, one of the reason why I'm rarely in chat (besides being blocked at work) is because the text is just so tiny on my monitor. I'd love to figure out a way to double to font size, but I have no interest in changing display resolutions.

GW, I never said anything was anyone's fault. I said why I didn't chat any more.

That is entirely my decision and entirely up to me, so I'm not sure what your post has to do with what I stated. I'm not going back to chat, and if the reason is that I think waffles should be pink instead of beige, who cares?

The same would go for cheeseburgers. If I try one, don't like it, and never try another, what's it to you? I think the word "silly" definitely applies, just not to me. So, go eat a cheeseburger while enjoying some fine, CB-chat action, and I wish you the best!

------

Don't really care what you do. As you said, it is ENTIRELY up to you. My post was in response to your accusation against OPs being unfair and the rules being "facist". If you are going to say things like that about people, maybe you should develop more of a readiness to be addressed by one of them about it.

As if, if I called someone a rude, blind person, I would most definitely expect them to respond in some fashion.

To use your absolutely WONDERFUL analogy, if you came to a party I was throwing, ate a cheeseburger and never ate another, that's fine! Great, even. If you come to my party, eat the cheeseburger, then run around complaining to everyone, saying the burger was burnt and there wasn't enough cheese... Well, I just may have to say something.

Do you get the point of my post NOW?

And on topic,

Meh. The OP is right to some degree. The current style (especially at upper regens) really does promote players logging on for just a few minutes, burning their BA and leaving. I'm sure there are even some players that play for that reason.

I've always thought it'd be interesting to allow players to have multiple "accounts" on a single account, banning transfers between them. Look at it like:

You have one name, used for chat/forums. Then you have 5 different Sub-accounts, each with their own BA regen rates, BA pools, money and other such things. You could either ban transfers between them totally, or just allow them and let people use the BA as they wish.

I think it would allow casual players to have and enjoy the account they use, and more active and interested players a bigger oppurtunity to enjoy the game!

This would solve a lot of the problems of scaling and "OP" as the more character, the smoother the transitions in the game and the less difference there is. And as long as the spawn rates of items went up at the same time, the economy itself wouldn't change at all either, except, of course, for USD/CB transactions. At the same time though, would it REALLY matter? It's not like a person using USD can't get the CB he wants, so meh. Would probably kill the CB/USD rates.... But that's a good thing, in my mind.

GW, who am I "running around complaining to"? I responded to the OP with a personal reason why I didn't chat, since that is what the thread is about.

Additionally, your critical thinking and debate skills need work. You state, correctly, that I called the rules fascist. In your next sentence, you infer that I am saying such things about PEOPLE. Your own words fall apart. I never called a person or even a person's behavior fascist, I said that the RULES were as such. That's my opinion, and it has nothing to do with you.

Even if I HAD said a person was fascist, your tirade still falls down. You are right, I would expect someone I called such a strong name to respond with equal intensity, and would take it without issue. Problem is, I never called you, or anyone, a fascist And yet you are supposedly defending...something...against my horrible, horrible words.

In other words, you made it personal where no such specific focus was previously. That's what I call being a troll, and yes, I am calling you a troll, for trolllike behavior, directly to your virtual face, because the way you are responding to me is entirely uncalled for.

I'd still like to hear what you think we'd do with the real trolls who inhabit chat and spend all day riding the lines of these fascist rules (Really, the rules are a collusion of business and government to make national power the only goal of society?).

Chat isn't dead because we have rules... in fact chat isn't really dead at all.

If the problem is that there isn't enough to do to keep people around all day, then lets give them more to do. The main BA refresh rates are nice as far as I'm concerned, I've been able to have something resembling a vacation without even concerning myself with finding somewhere to burn BA, I can work and not log on, and I can sleep without pain.

Tournaments, Contests, Forums, and Chat are all wonderful ways to spend the time between BA refreshes. Encouraging those things and adding new stuff to the the list would work much better than returning to a grindfest BA rate.

Then we started getting these immature people who did not even know how to type a sentence correctly. Using stupid abbreviations that old farts like myself do not know or care to know.

Now, we have some chat OPs who are quite moralistic (IMO) who threaten to kick you if you type anything that they do not like.

No matter if it is perfectly PG or in good fun, but if they do not like what you type, a kick is acoming.

And in addition, I 100% agree that the lower BA regeneration has a huge impact in chat and the overall game itself.

Just like the drop system and the fight feed. It seems that if you dislike something in the game and wish it removed, you get a scathing rebuke from some people who think that since it is there, it has to be good. Or get accused of a soapbox moment.

I really long for the day of free PG chat, without oppressive chat ops sitting around waiting for you to type something they disagree with so they can warn/kick you.

"GW, who am I "running around complaining to"? I responded to the OP with a personal reason why I didn't chat, since that is what the thread is about. "

That's fine. I understand what you were doing. But this is a public forum. So, I guess to answer your question, you're running around complaining to everyone who reads this forum. Though it's less complaining and more just you speaking negatively about chat ops. You can say you were speaking strictly about the rules, but there are just so mean reasons why that is highly doubtful.

"Additionally, your critical thinking and debate skills need work. You state, correctly, that I called the rules fascist. In your next sentence, you infer that I am saying such things about PEOPLE. Your own words fall apart. I never called a person or even a person's behavior fascist, I said that the RULES were as such. That's my opinion, and it has nothing to do with you."

Perhaps you should have thought it through a bit more. Firstly, maybe I'm just crazy, but your first post definitely labeled the actual act of kicking. Which OPs do. The rules themselves don't possess a magical foot to kick someone. And secondly, and I find this funny, those same fascist rules you refuse to tolerate in chat are equally present in the forums. The only difference? Chat ops and /kicks. But on the forums, apparently you have absolutely no problems with them.

"Even if I HAD said a person was fascist, your tirade still falls down. You are right, I would expect someone I called such a strong name to respond with equal intensity, and would take it without issue. Problem is, I never called you, or anyone, a fascist And yet you are supposedly defending...something...against my horrible, horrible words."

This whole paragraph makes sense. You put forward a hypothetical situation about you actually calling someone a fascist... And then immediately turn around and say you didn't call anyone a fascist. I just don't understand why you put the situation forward if you just were going to deny that it happened, which you had already done. Maybe clarify that a bit?

"In other words, you made it personal where no such specific focus was previously. That's what I call being a troll, and yes, I am calling you a troll, for trolllike behavior, directly to your virtual face, because the way you are responding to me is entirely uncalled for."

I'm an OP. So... Well, it was sort of personal. I mean, if you make a joke about gardeners and a gardener hears it, he'll probably take it personally. And call me a troll if you wish. I can't help that you don't like my tone, I guess. Or are you just upset that I'm speaking to you at all?

See, I've made no (however veiled) insults towards you. Or, really, said anything negative about you, other than that I believe you are wrong about chat. So, are you just hearing some tone that I didn't mean to put it, or are you just upset that I had the audacity to say that maybe you were wrong and being unfair?

"I'd still like to hear what you think we'd do with the real trolls who inhabit chat and spend all day riding the lines of these fascist rules (Really, the rules are a collusion of business and government to make national power the only goal of society?).

Chat isn't dead because we have rules... in fact chat isn't really dead at all. "

Seriously, you too? No, I am not going to tell you what we should do. I don't care, and it's not my job to. I did two things:

-- Turned off chat.
-- Replied in a thread about chat as to why I, based on my opinion, turned off chat.

If you have a problem with one or both of those items, please tell me why. And if you don't, please refrain from mixing in other issues, muddying my very clear points.

Here are things I never said:

-- That chat is dead.
-- That chat ops are bad.
-- That we shouldn't have any rules at all.

I care because I'd like to see the people (like yourself) that I like chatting with return. Secondly I've gone so far as to have given up my op over arguments about the rules. I honestly respect your opinion enough to want to hear what you'd do in the situations the ops find themselves in.

I don't have an answer because it is an impossibly subjective, yet resource-limited situation.

An analogy: officials in sports. They are there to administrate the rules. Sometimes they screw up. Does that make people mad? Sure. Doesn't mean the rules are wrong, doesn't mean the officials are bad people, and it doesn't mean I have a solution on how to fix it, other than to have better education and oversight.

Situations where people post about what they consider an unfair kick or kill (in other words, a form of potential oversight) are almost always met with, "OP was right, you were wrong, and it's just a kick anyway. Get over it." In the NFL, there might be review, even during the game. I realize we can't have that type of oversight here (that's the "resource-limited" part(, but that would be my idea -- more oversight, more appellate capabilities, and better checking as to what ops are doing well and which aren't (complete with removing poorly performing ops, if any are found).

Any yes, I agree that it is probably all jello and pudding now, and I might very well enjoy chat in its current state. But it isn't about that (for me) any more. I spend less and less time around here, and that is my own personal decision that doesn't have anything to do with anyone in particular, and is foolhardy to analyze or ask "why" concerning.

GW, I am saying there is no point in asking ME "why?" Sure, the game can ask global questions, trying to pinpoint what things lead to retention and which things do not, but no individual owes it to you or the game to reveal why their habits here may or may not change. That's not what you're asking for, is it?

Sut, maybe you should come back to chat. I'll quote hatch on why now "If you get kicked, you probably should have been killed. If you got killed, just be thankful you're still playing the game." The ops have let up drastically, and I really need someone to talk to ^_^.

"GW, I am saying there is no point in asking ME "why?" Sure, the game can ask global questions, trying to pinpoint what things lead to retention and which things do not, but no individual owes it to you or the game to reveal why their habits here may or may not change. That's not what you're asking for, is it? "

When a company has a product, how do they test consumer response?

They ask people.

Same thing here. Consider chat the product. What -I'm- asking for is a reason why you are unsatisfied with the product. Because, by my thunkin', if it's true for you, maybe it's true for others. And by the same token, if you come back to chat and enjoy it, then others could come to chat and enjoy it.

It seems to me like you think I'm attacking you. Or trying to torture an answer out of you. Or, heck, even making it personal. It's not. If you were anyone, I'd ask.

Which is why I brought up that chat is no longer anything like what you said. If a person uses incorrect data to reach a conclusion, you don't write them off. You correct their data and see what conclusion they reach then.

GW, I explained why I turned off chat, and your response to me was, well, not what a consumer products group would say (because the customer is always right, and you said flat out to me I was "wrong").

If Proctor & Gamble asked why I didn't use their advanced dishwasher fluid, the sparkly orange stuff you add to the dishwasher that really isn't needed, but supposedly makes dishes look nicer, and I said I used it for a while but then I found the product annoying to use, would they say: "No, you are wrong. Our product isn't annoying, so your response is invalid." Of course not. They would probably say, "What was annoying about it?" I might respond (if I wanted to, I wouldn't have to -- I am doing them a favor by speaking with them at all when there is nothing in it for me), "I didn't like the smell, and since I didn't really need the product to get my dishes clean, I just stopped using it to forego the annoyance I perceived."

Now, Proctor and Gamble _might_ change the smell of their product and then _might_ ask me if I like it better. But probably not just for me. And since I had come to the conclusion that I simply didn't need their product any more, how much time do you think they would spend asking me more questions or trying to persuade me?

Back to CB: the bad "smell" I got from chat was my own very subjective perception of rules gone awry with no way of fairness to ever be determined. Is that a big deal in the grand scheme of things? No. Am I overly sensitive, or experiencing the situation in a non-standard way? Maybe. Could I even change that experience by altering my perception and attitude? Certainly.

But I'm not going to. I turned off chat and I don't miss it, and I wanted to add one experience of a chat-turner-offer to the thread. I'm sorry if the market research isn't to your liking.

GW, you create too many problems with too many people. Please calm down abit on your opinionated responses. I understand everyone is entitled to their opinion, but everyone doesnt need to hear yours 100% of the time.

On-Topic @ OP: Makes sense to me. Higher BA regen time, less time spent on CB. And I know from personal experiences, this Fight Feed is making me close my CB Tab and not opening it again until I am near my 160BA limit. Causing me to be on CB much less then I would be therefore no talking.

"GW, you create too many problems with too many people. Please calm down abit on your opinionated responses. I understand everyone is entitled to their opinion, but everyone doesnt need to hear yours 100% of the time."

To think, this is what I was going to say to Ranger, right after he told GW that everyone was entitled to their opinions.... GW use to be a lot more calm before everyone went freaking nuts....

@ Titan
I could say what I said to a numerous amount of other CB users. But just now GW was typing paragraphs to Sutekh explaining how he is right or what he thinks goes or whatever. To hell if I was to read their whole arguement.. And this isnt the first thread of the day I've seen of GW doing this. So I thought I should point him out.

CB is meant to be fun, everyone comes on CB to have fun and enjoy themselves. When people stand up for their opinions, beliefs, views on everything, it just begins small fueds which arent needed and these negative feelings towards eachother begin to occur, and they are all over CB and progressively getting worse and worse. People need to learn to just bite their tongue. And these arguements happen every dang day on the forums and I am tired of seeing them. Sooner or later, I and many other people will be tired of seeing these arguments and everyone but the people involved in the arguements will be on the chat and forums (People have already began to disable chat and stop posting on the forums, considering 220 people are on CB on a weekly basis and like 40 of them post in the forums and like 25 of them are in the chat). Things need to change around here or CB will turn into a very dull game very soon as people will be avoiding everything social to do with CB.

@OP: A lot of the people I use to enjoy talking to in chat have either quit playing or reduced their play time by a lot. That makes chat a lot less interesting. When I left last I felt like this was one of the best communities on the internet. I came back because I felt that way. Shrug. Things change. It's all cyclical.

1) I don't post as much as you seem to think. I just saw the forums going crazy and totally losing all the common sense it once had, and decided to pitch in.

2) People have been claiming CB needs to change or it would die since I started. It's not really ever changed, and it's not really gotten any closer to dying, community wise at least.

3) It's rather odd that you called me out over others. I'm just going to assume you don't like me, as you can't have another reason. I'm far from the most argumentative person on forums, I was hardly the only person on this thread trying to prove themselves right and when you look at the rest of the forums, the above exchange was pretty mild. For me, at least =) I didn't insult anyone.

4) The sad reality is, it doesn't matter how you really act. My attitude and take on the forums has changed drastically since I started. And I'm pretty sure about the same amount of people like/dislike me. Maybe no the same ones, but meh. Stuff happens.

I mean, why bother trying to spin some wonderful tale about human goodness to improve the forums. Or try and convince everyone how great the game is in an effort to boost morale? I've tried it. I tried everything I could until I just basically ran out of ideas. And nothing changed. Indeed, I'm sure when people think of me now, very few if any remember some of those things.

I've always been jaded. But nowadays, I just don't have the effort to try to lighten up the forums. I mean, as Sut sort of pointed out, people will do whatever they want. They don't owe the community anything, they don't owe the game anything. You can do whatever you want here and it's all okay.

Meh. I don't know where I'm going with this. But I know two things. 1) It'll get better. Eventually. 2) Whether it gets better sooner or later is totally out of my hands. If I left and never came back right this moment, the game would neither notice, nor care, nor change in any way.

Too many people think negatively of others who they consider trolls. They don't stop to think that it says a lot that some people who used to be positive are now spending so much of their time thinking negatively of others, if only because of their negativity.

The above stuff is rather offtopic. In my mind, it all ties in. You can't have a good chat if the community is in, lets say... A dark-ish place. So, basically, we can't use chat population to measure whether or not the BA-regen rate is bad or good because, until the community is a bit less crazy, it could just as much be that.

Lastly, I'm wrong a lot. A whole bunch. And sometimes in pretty epic ways. Which is never any fun, but it's a learning experience. But I find it kind of scary how rarely I see people admit to being wrong, lately. Occasionally I see apologies, but more often than not, they seem like someone attempting to be seen taking the high road and gain points than someone genuinely sorry for saying or doing something.

Some advice, Hoss. When you don't know where you're going with a piece of writing, stop. Revise. Sometimes the revision involves canceling the whole thing and going to bed.

You're passionate, I get that. I respect that. But the first rule about passion and respect is to respect the passion of others. Otherwise, yours means nothing. Less than nothing. I'm not going to spout some truism about how creation is so much easier than destruction, because it simply isn't true. It's really easy to create. Just add one layer of time and thought to everything you say, and voila! You'll find you're creating all the damn time. You'll see people you never knew respecting your choice and asking your advice. You'll notice other people following your example and be aghast that "that worked!"

I said what I wanted to say. Whether anyone considered it a masterpiece of writing or in any way useful is just something I can't make myself care about. I wasn't pushing or pulling. I put something out there, and I even put it where no one had to read. And, honestly, you confirmed the point of the whole thing, at least to me. Which is all that matters at this point.

Awww. You two are so cute. I'd like to remind everyone that just because you don't agree with someone, doesn't make them a troll. I've seen very little actual trolling in this thread, at least when compared to other threads.

And do try to remember that trolling is typically a deliberate act. Unless they're saying something designed to inflame that serves no purpose at all, and they're doing it deliberately, that probably aren't actually trolling. Just thought I'd put that out there.

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